Protests in France

[EyeBRollin]

Leftist MO.

1. Make a statement as if it was true.
2. Be unable and unwilling to defend it.
3. Accuse others of being ignorant.
4. Make personal attacks.
5. Refuse to provide any data or links.
6. Continue personal attacks.

It is always the same formula.

Facts don’t require defense. You treat facts as opinions. Your commitment to ignorance fosters no credibility.

 

[EyeBRollin]

Facts need to be fact checked. Moreover I think you confuse "facts" with "conclusions".

Fact - There is a wealth gap.
Fact - There is corruption

Claim - Wealth gap CAUSES corruption. <----- This is a conclusion made without supporting data. I am asking for the supporting data on this.

What "fact" have I said was an opinion? Let's see if we can get to the root of this and resolve it.

Asking for logic is not a commitment to ignorance. Refusing to provide logic or sources IS a commitment to ignorance. Nice try though.

Nope, it’s a fact that extreme wealth gap causes corruption. Please, go ahead and fact check. You could make a counter claim but won’t because all you’re interested in is having a source to attack. That’s straight out of the Trump alternative facts spin playbook.

 

[user43770]

A counter claim on what causes corruption? There could 1000 causes, but any and all of them would require data and logic to support it.

The answer is, you don't have data or logic. You just have wild claims based on feelz with nothing to back it up.

Your allegations are worthless if you can't back them up.

There will always be a wealth gap, as the more intelligent will generally find a way to succeed. Unless they're dragged down by egalitarianism and excessive taxes.

I would argue that power is more likely to lead to corruption. You constantly hear about local politicians breaking the law, and they usually aren't particularly wealthy.

 

[EyeBRollin]

There will always be a wealth gap, as the more intelligent will generally find a way to succeed. Unless they're dragged down by egalitarianism and excessive taxes.

I would argue that power is more likely to lead to corruption. You constantly hear about local politicians breaking the law, and they usually aren't particularly wealthy.

Power comes from wealth gap. There’s no power if everyone is equally poor or equally well off.

 

[EyeBRollin]

A counter claim on what causes corruption? There could 1000 causes, but any and all of them would require data and logic to support it.

The answer is, you don't have data or logic. You just have wild claims based on feelz with nothing to back it up.

Your allegations are worthless if you can't back them up.

No, the answer is you offer no meaningful content to any of these discussions. No opinions, no facts, no conclusions, nothing. You’re here to troll. You had your reading topics spoon fed to you pages back yet you still failed to address the issue.

 

[user43770]

Power comes from wealth gap. There’s no power if everyone is equally poor or equally well off.

Wealth brings power, but so does the ability to spread around other people's wealth, i.e. taxes via subsidies.

 

[EyeBRollin]

Wealth brings power, but so does the ability to spread around other people's wealth, i.e. taxes via subsidies.

Politicians are bribed by the wealthy. They aren’t handing out the same kind of freebies to poor people like they shower corporations and billionaires with trillion dollar tax breaks.

 

[user43770]

Politicians are bribed by the wealthy. They aren’t handing out the same kind of freebies to poor people like they shower corporations and billionaires with trillion dollar tax breaks.

They aren't handing out freebies to poor people? Then how would you explain that 2/3 of government spending goes to entitlements?

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

I see people here are falling for one of the oldest cons of all time. Dating all the way back to Hammurabi

All rulers need some kind of consent from the ruled. So they make a bunch of laws that are supposed to "protect" the common folk.

That allegedly make it difficult to exploit people.

These laws are always a con, and are gamed by those who can.

This creates the wealth gap.

The more the common man complains about the wealth gap, the more the leaders create more "rules" to allegedly help the common man.

These new rules are also gamed by those who can, which EXACERBATES the wealth gap.

Not unlike regulatory capture, predicted by Noble winner Milton Friedman. Governments create laws, and those that can, GAME those laws to increase their wealth.

Poor people complain, they want MORE LAWS to reduce the "wealth gap" and politicians (especially those on the left whose marketing strategy is always geared toward lower income folk) are more than happy to comply.

This SAME PROCESS has happened in every society since the dawn of time.

The poor people who are getting screwed are usually the LOUDEST ONES clamoring for new laws that the wealthy will just game more.

This is EXACTLY why elites want massive immigration. Immigrants are the EASIEST voters to con. They are the most gullible for the promises of politicians who create laws that their rich friend can game to get even MORE WEALTH.

Same as it ever was.

 

[EyeBRollin]

They aren't handing out freebies to poor people? Then how would you explain that 2/3 of government spending goes to entitlements?

More Right wing propaganda. How is something people pay into for 40+ years an “entitlement?” The irony... high income people pay a smaller percentage than everyone else, due to the regressive cap.

 

[EyeBRollin]

The answer is you are trying to pass off cause and effect as fact, with no analysus it logic to support it.

Then you get angry when someone asks you to expand on your conclusion.

Wealth may FACILITATE corruption through bribes, but to say it causes corruption is quite a stretch.

There’s no need to expand on my statement. If you can’t deduce how consolidation of wealth causes corruption that’s on you.

 

[user43770]

More Right wing propaganda. How is something people pay into for 40+ years an “entitlement?” The irony... high income people pay a smaller percentage than everyone else, due to the regressive cap.

As if everyone receiving government money payed taxes for 40 years.

 

[EyeBRollin]

As if everyone receiving government money payed taxes for 40 years.

That doesn’t matter. Rich man evades taxes, he’s “smart.” Poor man gets laid off, he’s “lazy.” Typical right wing double standard. Did you support the $1.5 trillion giveaway last year to billionaires and corporations?

 

[EyeBRollin]

LOL!!

Why is it we never hear about welfare running out of money? But we do for Social Security?

You already said in another thread that sick poor people should just die. I’m sure you’d want them to starve and be homeless also.

 

[Bible_Belt]

As if everyone receiving government money payed taxes for 40 years.

You are talking about Federal income tax, but everyone pays usage taxes. Poor people buy booze, cigarettes, gasoline, and everything else that gets taxed at the transaction and before. And all of those taxes are regressive, in that they take away a larger fraction of a poor person's wealth than a rich person.

Entitlement spending is mostly social security and medicare/medicaid. It is not housing and food, which by the way, goes right back into corporate coffers as soon as it is doled out. That's the real reason we have food stamps. All that money goes straight to Walmart and the handful of giant corporations that control our food supply as soon as it gets spent. They are the ones with Washington lobbyists, not the poor people. Hating poor people is just a distraction from the reality that the welfare state exists for corporate benefit. They are the ones who wrote the rules, like the one that says I can buy diet soda with food stamps. Who the hell is benefitting from that besides the soda company? Diet soda never kept anyone from starving to death.

 

[samspade]

If you were me you would not call names or insult when asked to provide your logic or facts that lead to your conclusion (if you saw only "ignorance" then you need to go back and read some more).

Danger, I was waiting for you to say simply, "Fine, I'm ignorant. Please educate me." (To EBR.)

Because he's using the I-word to take a moral high ground, but if he has facts on his side, our esteemed colleague should wield them.

The wealth gap and corruption have gone hand in hand throughout history, but I'm not sure the former causes the latter. It certainly exacerbates it.

Look at the the French, Russian, and Cuban revolutions. When not only the political class, but the people feeding off of them, are pushing their snouts in the trough while the populace goes hungry, that's when the shyt hits the fan. People will only take so much.

However, corruption will always exist, and what replaced those systems didn't fare much better. In fact, they were/are arguably worse.

In Cuba's case, prior to Castro it was a banana republic with a lousy dictator, a mafia- and foreign conglomerate-run economy, and a lot of poor people. After Castro, it was a puppet nation for the Soviets with a lousy dictator and a lot of poor people but with better health care or something. Americans talk about our politicians being "cucks" but look at Battista and Castro.

It's one thing America is a little bit better at, which is finding a way for the populace to have some baseline that keeps them from going ape shyt. Bread and circuses. As long as people are comfortable, not much will change. But the more the decadent elite class in DC expands at the expense of everyone else, the higher the chances of some real shyt going down. taiyuu_otoko did a good job explaining how it all works in his post. The elite can afford throwing sheckles at the poor if it keeps them from uprising and messing everything up. Remember Bush's $300 tax rebates? And of course Democrats have their own more ceremonious versions of this ("we extended unemployment!"). Americans are also a little more level headed and not homogeneous, and I think less prone to a giant revolution. The 30s and the 60s/70s were great opportunities for something crazy to happen, and it didn't. (The 60s get exaggerated with all of the student protests; on the other hand the civil rights movement was laser-focused and effective.)

In the end, in my opinion, corruption isn't caused by inequality. It exists in any system. BUT, inequality can feed corruption. Inequality (in the economic sense) is not unique to capitalism. I'm open to some kind of blend of systems if it works for me. For instance, I'd rather pay a little more in taxes not to have to shop around for crappy American health care and avoid "copays" and "deductibles," which are a scam.

I think it's curious how few people can hold two thoughts at once on the subject.

 

[user43770]

Power comes from wealth gap. There’s no power if everyone is equally poor or equally well off.

Hmm. This sounds really good. Can you give me an example of this ever working in the world fvcking ever?

 

[user43770]

You are talking about Federal income tax, but everyone pays usage taxes. Poor people buy booze, cigarettes, gasoline, and everything else that gets taxed at the transaction and before. And all of those taxes are regressive, in that they take away a larger fraction of a poor person's wealth than a rich person.

Entitlement spending is mostly social security and medicare/medicaid. It is not housing and food, which by the way, goes right back into corporate coffers as soon as it is doled out. That's the real reason we have food stamps. All that money goes straight to Walmart and the handful of giant corporations that control our food supply as soon as it gets spent. They are the ones with Washington lobbyists, not the poor people. Hating poor people is just a distraction from the reality that the welfare state exists for corporate benefit. They are the ones who wrote the rules, like the one that says I can buy diet soda with food stamps. Who the hell is benefitting from that besides the soda company? Diet soda never kept anyone from starving to death.

Well, now we're reverting back to demand side economics.

 

[user43770]

Demand doesn't mean anything if you don't have the supply, which is why I love Trump.

 

[Trump]

It's one thing America is a little bit better at, which is finding a way for the populace to have some baseline that keeps them from going ape shyt. Bread and circuses. As long as people are comfortable, not much will change. .

I don't think America is better at that. I think there is nothing to change. America is the land of the free, the land of opportunity. What is the populace going to get upset about? Too much freedom? Too much money to be made? Too much democracy?